


Buddy Aurinko and The Phoenix of Sol

by stubborn_jerk



Series: Reverse AU [4]
Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Episode: s01e16-17 Peter Nureyev and the Angel of Brahma, F/F, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Mild Gore, Mind Reading, Other, Parental Issues, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-13
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-21 12:41:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30021954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stubborn_jerk/pseuds/stubborn_jerk
Summary: An Ancient Martian tomb miles beneath the planet’s surface. Captured by Miasma and forced into strange and sinister experiments, things are looking grim… for Buddy AurinkoBuddy Aurinko: master thief, has never stayed imprisoned for long. But she has Detective Ilkay to consider now, the woman Miasma’sreallytorturing, whose mind is strained a little more with every test, with every turn of Miasma’s dial.Buddy could escape on her own, if only she’d leave the detective behind.But will she? To answer that, you’ll have to ask yourself: who is Buddy Aurinko?
Relationships: Buddy Aurinko/Vespa Ilkay, Vespa Ilkay & Jet Sikuliaq
Series: Reverse AU [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2133048
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	1. The Wolf of Hyperion

**Author's Note:**

> quick shout-out to [Jeannette](https://archiveofourown.org/users/entropyre), the co-creator of this AU, for checking up on the progress of this little thing.

She mastered fantasies before she mastered planning.

To demonstrate: just then, strapped onto a chair and forced to do meaningless task after meaningless task, she was under a fantasy of breaking through her restraints, grabbing a blaster from one of the tongueless assistants, and shooting Miasma in the eye.

The only thing holding Buddy Aurinko back, because of course something had to, was the threatening glint of a bronze knife through a grainy camera feed— pressed up against the quivering throat of the woman she’d trusted to plan their way out of this.

Vespa seemed to be holding up just as well as she was, which, if Buddy had any semblance of self-awareness, meant that she wasn’t doing quite as well as she seemed to be. Because hidden behind the graininess of that camera feed, under neck and joints, were nodes used to shock Vespa into making Buddy cooperate.

And damn Miasma because it’s worked perfectly the past few days.

Weeks.

Buddy couldn’t really get ahold of how long they’ve been doing this. If she didn’t know to hold her tongue, she’d even say she was growing bored of it.

“Next,” Miasma said into the mic.

Vespa turned over a card.

“... Red,” Buddy said.

It wasn’t as if pretending to struggle with her abilities was hard. No, considering she’d done more under more perilous situations before, she couldn’t consider it difficult to read a bunch of cards in Vespa’s hands from another room like they were in an old and awful stream about telepathy. It was just that with the nodes drilled into _Buddy’s_ head, it was going to be a lot more difficult to lie.

But before anything, really, Buddy Aurinko was an actress. And a damn fine one, if she might say.

“Next.”

“A star.”

“What star.”

“... It looks like Vega to me but I don’t quite think Vespa’s ever been to recognize it.”

“ _Don’t have the savings for a vacation, Bud,_ ” Vespa croaked back through the screen. Buddy wanted to tell her to quit joking, maybe even laugh, but it was a relief to hear her voice when it wasn’t in muffled pained screams.

“Well, we’ll just have to plan for it, then.”

Then, there was that click just as Vespa shook her head fondly. That click that said Miasma had cut off the audio to their feed going into Vespa’s room. “Do you think it’s clever of you to lie about these things, thief?”

“I rarely lie, and even rarer do I lie about planning anything, Miasma,” Buddy quipped. When Miasma didn’t react, she followed with, “But I’m assuming you meant something other than Detective Ilkay’s vacation plans. Really, doctor, as much as I love dramatic pauses, yours tend to bore me.”

“ _Results_ don’t lie, Buddy Aurinko. You’ve been hiding your real capabilities this entire time,” she said, ignoring her. “Though I can’t say it doesn’t fascinate me how long you’ve put up the ruse.”

A series of beeps came from Miasma’s computer. Then, the squeak of her wheeled chair.

Seeing Miasma up close had never been a pleasant experience, in Buddy’s opinion. For all intents and purposes, Miasma had the face of caked makeup standing in the rain.

Only, it kept running. One look, she’s got a different face on, another she’s got something else on.

And her _thoughts_.

Admittedly, the first couple of hours she spent in proximity of the doctor were infuriating. It was a constant barrage of the same phrase littered with random commentary of the things she was doing. Sure, if Buddy tried hard enough she might be able to get something out of her— a memory, perhaps, or attempt something a bit more useful.

As if Buddy hadn’t already memorized the floor plans of this place like the back of her hand since the first time she snuck—

The brightness coming from the screen in Miasma’s hands startled her from her reverie.

“Do you understand what you took, Buddy Aurinko?”

“That depends. Do you happen to work in law enforcement on the side? Because if you are, I’m not required to answer that question.”

“The ancient medicine held by Saffron Pharmaceuticals. The one you swallowed,” she answered instead, ignoring her. With a scoff, she poked distractedly at her screen. “Saffron understood the pill’s general purpose, but none of the details. That’s what happens when you send chemists to do the work of an anthropologist: you get details without context.”

“Well, good thing I read up on those anthropological findings, hm?” Buddy let out a breathy chuckle, trying not to mind how closely Miasma was sitting. “You really _should_ up your cybersecurity, you know. Someone very determined could get into those files.”

“So, you understand, then,” Miasma said, inclining her head as if to study her. “And yet you took it. You planted a seed in you that you have no control over, a seed that’s been feeding at you since the start.” She poked around her screen some more. “Interesting.”

“Don’t speak about it like _that_ , darling, you make it sound like I’m preg—”

“The Lassoniana growth… the last of its kind, wasted on some thief.”

“Really, if you wanted such dull conversation, you should have spoken to your computer screen. Or one of your assistants. As I understand it, you’ve cut all their tongues out instead of just buying yourself server bots. Your misanthropy knows no bounds, darling, which is _hilar_ ious considering your occupation.”

As if in disbelief, Miasma repeated, “Some mouthy thief…”

“I take offense to that,” she retorted half-heartedly. “I like to think of myself as verbose, at the very least. Prolific. Loquacious.”

Finally, Miasma showed her the screen. On it was the image of some big, swollen mass, a bit like a potato with blood that was ready to burst. Its bulgy roots were twisting into the back of an eyeball, some of it escaping down the side of a cheek.

She took a deep breath.

Miasma raised her hand and traced her long, chipped fingernail across the right side of Buddy’s face.

Buddy couldn’t struggle, couldn’t even lean away.

“It lives in here,” Miasma said, almost conversationally. “And I intend to get it out.”

“Except that you can’t,” Buddy breathed out. “I know you can’t, your assistants know you can’t, hell— let’s count the detective, since she’s the one who told me in the first place— _Vespa_ also knows you can’t, so really, pushing the boulder up this hill is just going to keep crushing you, and I think it would be much more prudent if you give up this endeavor—”

“I _can_ , Buddy Aurinko,” Miasma answered. Directly, as well. It was the first time she’d addressed Buddy at all that day, that week. Mostly, Buddy spoke at her and Miasma spoke at her in return. “And I will, because I—”

“Always get what you want, yes, yes. You really ought to pick up a hobby, listen to some music.”

Miasma, blessedly, said nothing about her blatant announcement that she’d been listening to Miasma’s thoughts regularly enough for it to get annoying. It wasn’t as if Buddy was going to justify herself, being strapped into a chair and psychologically tortured.

There was a sound— the same click of the mic turning on in Vespa’s chamber.

“Assistant, sedate the detective.”

Buddy looked up at her as she left her side.

“If you’ve progressed far enough, Buddy Aurinko, then there are certain things you are able to do. If hearing thoughts has become easy for you and the growth has grown further than I’ve thought, then surely you’re able to do much more than that.”

This time, Buddy _did_ struggle against her restraints.

On the camera feed, Vespa didn’t. She never did.

Of any one thing Buddy was certain about, she was certain she knew a fighter when she saw one, and fighters never fled, never flinched. They glared at the threat head on with their shoulders squared and stood their ground despite the alarms clanging ahead.

Vespa Ilkay was a fighter. She sat still as the assistant approached with the syringe and watched calmly as whatever it was, was injected into her arm.

“ _I’m impressed. Your assistants know how to find a vein, Miasma,_ ” Vespa commented calmly and damn if Buddy didn’t feel it like a balm to her own nerves. “ _Any of you ever go to OUCM?_ ”

“Memories, Buddy Aurinko,” Miasma finally said as Vespa went under. “Search through her memories. I know the growth is capable of that and I want to see how it responds.”

Buddy struggled once more before sitting back, panting for breath. “What for? You won’t be able to get it anyway.”

“I do not have to explain myself to you.” To the microphone by her computer, she said, “Assistant, stand at the ready with a blaster.”

Buddy scoffed. “This is cheap.”

“It is effective,” she countered.

Then, turning once again to face Buddy, she took a moment to study her. Perhaps seeing Buddy Aurinko for the first time since abducting them. It had always been just stimulus and response— torture the detective and see how the growth in the thief’s face reacts. “You’re hesitating.”

“I don’t suppose you just want me to invade someone else’s privacy without their consent,” Buddy replied. It was a weak counterargument.

Buddy had done far worse than invade someone’s privacy without consent, but that was a thought reserved only for the days she needed a reason to be drinking four travel-sized bottles of wine after a job well done.

“But _why_ are you hesitating?” Miasma’s gaze pulled away to look at Vespa through the screen. “You’ve worked with her several times, she knows your name and maybe even more. Yet you don’t know a thing about her—”

“I contest that point, I know _quite_ a lot about our dear detective.”

“A good thief, I’d imagine, should know whose pocket she’s stealing from, doesn’t she? Lest you find something unsavory.”

“This metaphor is getting out of hand, doctor.”

“A shame you can’t look into your own mind, really. I reckon there are a lot of things there that might need tidying up.”

“Excuse me?”

Miasma snapped out of it before Buddy could say anything else. There wasn’t much to say to it either way. She scowled, or made an approximation of it with her… weird facial muscles. “My patience grows thin. Now. Or else.”

Well, she’d stalled long enough. She hoped Vespa had a good ten seconds of rest before Buddy had to kick down her mental doors.

And it wasn’t as if she was scared of knowing things about Vespa— things that were below the surface of an HCPD or Dark Matters character profile at least.

Buddy wanted to know quite a lot, actually, and therein lies the problem, because Buddy Aurinko wasn’t supposed to stay long enough to _want to know_ things about people.

This time, she had little choice. If she wanted help Vespa to plan their way out of this one, she needed to live.

She closed her eyes, as she’d done so before. Between card games to the death and Miasma having her do mind-numbing tasks, she went through the same motions. She reached out for something and _grabbed_ , turning it before pulling.

And before she went under, she swore she could hear Miasma laugh.

* * *

The scene Buddy Aurinko walked into was nothing short of disorienting.

It was dark, silent, and the constant metronome of a vintage clock made her relax.

She knew this room— this apartment rather. She’d been in it twice now, both times in the dark sitting room that she stood in the middle of.

It was Vespa’s.

But she wasn’t there to witness her own memories.

As if on cue, the door to the apartment slid open. Vespa stumbled in, kicking off her boots.

Her comms beeped just as she did.

Fussing up her hair, she answered. “Ilkay speaking. Who’s this?”

“ _Vespa, it is Jet, the reason why you have been fired from –”_

Unwittingly, Vespa stammered, “You can just _say_ you’re Jet, Sikuliaq, you’re literally the only person I know named Jet. I don’t really…”

She groaned, making her way to her living room— not even bothering with the lights as she dropped herself unceremoniously onto the couch. “Is there a reason you’re calling me?”

Her stumbling responses were the only reason Buddy was confident that this was a memory. The Vespa Ilkay she knew personally wasn’t the type to stammer unless so thoroughly flustered.

“ _Yes. The reason I called you is because the places of refuge these agents have offered do not seem viable, if we are to continue working together_.”

Even with the surge of emotions Buddy felt along the scene, Vespa’s face told a story of its own. A mixture of despair, disbelief, annoyance, reluctance, relief: all tangled into one complicated mass in Vespa’s chest as she sank into her couch cushions.

“You… actually _want_ to, is what you’re saying,” Vespa sighed. Buddy could hear the disbelief in this statement. “Keep working together, I mean.”

“ _Yes. I was assuming that this was not a one-sided feeling. Our work today at the Fortezza was both satisfying and fulfilling.”_

“It was definitely some kind of adrenaline high, that’s for sure,” she said, picking the lint off her cushions.

It was a shame she lost her job over it, Buddy thought, before realizing it wasn’t her thought, but Vespa’s.

“ _Well, if we are to continue working together, I would prefer if I took residence in Hyperion,_ ” Jet said, almost to someone else, likely to the Dark Matters agent assigned to guard him. “ _I will be very firm about this. If I am not to be taken seriously, I will not be held responsible for what I am about to do to you, Agent_.”

Instead of reacting with abject terror, this made Vespa snort. “Take it easy on ‘em, Sikuliaq.”

“ _I will not_.”

“Well, if you’re having a tough time looking and they’re not letting you stay at your current place in Newtown…” A part of Vespa hesitated, forcing her to stumble over her next few words. “I do still have that guest room. I dunno if you’d want to stay in there after… well, I suppose you’d want to forget going cold turkey ever happened but—”

There was a loud sniffle over the line after a few deafening ticks from Vespa’s vintage clock, which made Buddy laugh.

“... _It is very nice of you to offer, Vespa. Though I appreciate it greatly, I doubt the Agent would let me. I would be of great risk to you_.”

“Would it kill Dark Matters to do _one_ consensual thing?” Vespa deadpanned.

Unlikely, Buddy thought bitterly.

“Risk or no, I’ve lived with you the longest. If they want to keep you under protection, they’ll just have to get used to me. Just tell ‘em I offered and hey, at least they’d have two idiot captives in place instead of one, right?”

“ _I will. I may need to convince the Agent further._ ”

“Alright. Night, Sikuliaq.”

“ _Good night, Vespa. Jet out_.”

Vespa brought her comms in front of her, looking down at its glass screen. “Jet out,” she snorted. “Weirdo.”

It sounded fond.

It _was_ fond, Buddy felt, but the same cocktail of despair, disbelief, and reluctance stayed with her.

“I can’t be _lieve_ you did this, Vee,” she whispered to herself. “Dropping out was one thing, resigning from medical practice?” She clicked her tongue, getting up from her seat. “But… getting fired for a bunch of _criminals_. Who the hell do you think you _are_?”

Buddy had read about that while researching, behind the cover of red tape and encrypted files from both Dark Matters and the Martian government. It seemed this was the aftermath of it: the uncovering of the Fortezza-THEIA scandal. Years of high-class inmates being released from confinement seemingly “reformed” was suspect at best.

It seemed fitting that Vespa had done something of that caliber.

It seemed less than fitting for Vespa to regret it.

Vespa started undressing as she crossed the living room, and Buddy would have given her the benefit of privacy, except that she couldn’t. Like a stream, she was directed to details in this memory, made to observe the events as they happened.

Upon first conversation, Vespa Ilkay wouldn’t have seemed like the type for office propriety, but she dressed smart, in clean button-ups and slacks and cleaner coats. Blessedly, that meant she wore an undershirt and Buddy didn’t have to see something she’d rather not see without consent.

Vespa’s bedroom was as clean as she was, everything in its rightful place: clock on the bedside table, clothes hung perfectly by her open closet, boots, heels, and shoes next to boxes of other garments.

Buddy wanted to have a better look around, see what she had missed the last time she broke into the detective’s apartment.

But then, as Vespa was down to just her boxers and undershirt, her comms beeped again.

With a grunt, she grabbed the thing from her bedside table and answered without looking. “You convince ‘em yet?”

“ _What?_ ” a voice that was definitely not Jet Sikuliaq answered.

“Oh,” she said, a sinking feeling in her gut. “Dad. Hey.”

“ _Don’t sound so disappointed, kid. What’s gotten you so wound up?_ ”

“I—” she took a breath, fighting down the urge to take several. “I’m not. It’s just been a long day. Don’t you have work tomorrow, why are you calling me?”

“ _Don’t **you**?_”

Vespa quelled the irrationality of the thought of her father knowing she’d been fired. Buddy was familiar with the feeling and the cloying panic that came with it.

Trying to avoid disappointment offered one hell of an adrenaline rush.

“I do, but I’m younger than you, old man,” she quipped, voice flatter than Jet’s. “I can handle a little sleep deprivation at my cushy office job.”

The lying was grating on her. Or rather, on Vespa.

The disorienting feeling of having no idea where Vespa’s thoughts started and Buddy’s ended was making her head spin.

“Do you actually need something, Dad? Because I’m tired…”

“ _Would it be so hard to just sit back and talk to your old man about your day?_ ”

“Yes.”

“ _Ooh, that stings, kid._ ”

Vespa rolled her eyes. Then, drawling, she said, “Well, if you gotta know, I went and uncovered an entire secret industry of corrupt police controlling the sharpest criminal minds in Hyperion with robot computer chips.”

He laughed. “ _Sounds like an adventure._ ”

Vespa took a measured breath. “Yeah, it was, when I woke up from it. I kinda wanna see what the mayor’ll give me when I continue the dream tonight. Bye, Dad.”

“ _Hey, c’mon. You didn’t even tell me anything_.”

Exhausted of this pantomime, Vespa growled and said, “That’s because I don’t want to.”

“ _Hey, c’mon, kid_ ,” he snapped. He was always so short-tempered, those days. (That thought, Buddy knew, was Vespa’s. She’d never met Mr. Ilkay in her life and she sincerely felt that after this encounter, will never want to.) “ _I check up on you once a week, the least you can give me is the time of day._ ”

Vespa took a deep breath. “Dad, I’ve been up since four. It’s—” she checked her alarm clock, her shoulders rising to her ears. “It’s midnight. So there, gave you the time of day, didn’t I?”

“ _You think you’re so funny, huh? Maybe you should have gone for stand-up comedy instead—”_

“Is there a point to this?” Vespa snapped. “I said I’m tired, alright? You still haven’t even told me why you called. Or do you just want to make jabs at me for leaving the hospital again.”

“ _That was your choice_ —”

Vespa didn’t let him speak. Buddy could see this coming to a head more than she could feel it. This was the part where Vespa said something she’d have to apologize—

“No, don’t start with me, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that.” She threw her hand up, furious, incredulous, scoffing, “You shouldn’t even _care_ about what I’m doing, it’s not like I haven’t been sending you money on top of paying my rent and taxes! What more do you want from me? A pity party because you’re too old to get a job that pays for your maintenance? Boo fucking hoo! You should’ve thought of that _before_ you started chain smoking.”

And there it was, they both thought. The sinking feeling in Vespa’s gut sunk impossibly further down. Buddy wanted to look away, but there was nothing pulling her away from seeing all the blood in Vespa’s face leave.

“ _That’s it then, we should all just do and say what little Miss Vespa wants to see and hear. You ungrateful little shit_. _I break my back working to get us here, just so you could even have a chance of a chance at doing whatever you want, and you tell me I don’t and shouldn’t care about you?_ ”

And just like that, the blush on Vespa’s face was back.

She let out a rough laugh that made a shiver run down Buddy’s spine. “How am I ungrateful? How many times have I come to the Wires instead of you for help? How many creds have you spent to send me to med school? Could you count even a single _chip_ you earned that went into _my_ transition?

“‘Cause that’s not adding up, Dad. I’ve worked my ass off not to waste a single thing you’ve ever given me but somehow I’m still the one fucking up.

“You may have gotten us off Ranga, but not _once_ have I ever done anything to inconvenience you. So, the least you could do is pretend, alright. Just fucking pretend that you care about what I _want_ for once and just let me go to bed.”

There was a lull of silence where not a single thought crossed Vespa’s mind. The only thing telling Buddy that the call was still ongoing was the numbers counting up the minutes they’ve taken up.

Then, Vespa thought, _Good luck telling him you’re unemployed again, idiot_.

“ _Vee_.”

“Good… good night, Dad,” Vespa whispered, emotions running through her fast as she blinked up at her ceiling. “I’ll talk to you again next week.”

She hung up.

She had no plans to talk to him next week.

In fact, she had half the mind to block her father’s comms line just to be on the safe side, because there was no way they were going to reconcile without having to look each other in the face and that was the last thing she wanted.

Vespa always did have a bit of a weakness when it came to the softness to her father’s tone when she appealed to his sensibilities, when she started crying.

And did she start crying.

There wasn’t a single bone of regret in Vespa Ilkay’s body, Buddy thought, but the moving muscles in her heart were full of it down to the cell.

Vespa collapsed onto her sheets before she broke down sobbing, curling in on herself in the middle of her bed.

And in that moment, in that memory, Vespa felt she had nothing and no one but a past that scorned her and a future that abandoned her. There had been endless nights she spent like this: crying, alone, with no one to hold her, not a father, not a friend. And moving forward she felt confident it was going to stay that way.

Because _she_ had to be strong, didn’t she?

 _She_ was a grown woman who didn’t need handouts or favors.

 _She_ was Rangian and _she_ had to work twice as hard.

And whatever she did, she couldn’t even make up for that much. What a joke Vespa Ilkay was, some try-hard who failed over and over and over at the things she prided herself to be good at.

And though she had a friend now, she couldn’t even tell him. Telling Jet would have been needlessly harsh, considering part of the reason for her distress was due in part to Jet’s arrival in her life and the reason he wanted to stay with her.

And Cassandra… For all that relationship was worth, that wasn’t necessarily the type they had.

She couldn’t even leave her apartment to take a walk. The HCPD was out to get her and Jet for the Fortezza scandal, and if anyone on the force spotted her...

“Wouldn’t have happened if you just minded your own goddamn business,” Vespa croaked to herself as she scrubbed at her face.

And she meant it.

If she had just turned Jet away when she realized who he was, she wouldn’t have gotten to this point. She’d still have her miserable forensics job at the HCPD, still have weekly meet-ups with her father instead of calls that lead to fights, still… still be as friendless and lonesome as she’d been since Sasha left.

Here Vespa was, on the verge of starting her agency with Jet, telling herself that if she had minded her own business, she wouldn’t be in such a sorry state. That her father was right to criticize her inability to hold down a job just like everyone else.

She was smarter than this, she thought. She had to be, to stay where she was, to not go back to having dried mud beneath her fingernails.

It was an ugly feeling, but it was hers.

And in that moment, it was Buddy’s too.

Despite the heart-wrenching sobs the detective unleashed into her pillow, Buddy couldn’t help but feel…

Well, that was complicated, wasn’t it?

But, even with all these feelings of lack of self-worth and failure, it was hard to notice. Because all Buddy could see were the silver linings, of the way the light hit every contour of this woman, drenched in darkness, alone in her room.

Vespa would move on from this selflessly, throw herself into her private investigation, to work on cases so beyond her ‘ _own goddamn business_ ’ that she’d end up saving countless lives.

Buddy’s included. Multiple times already within the two times they’ve met each other.

To the few she extended herself to, Vespa Ilkay gave her all, and Buddy couldn’t help but be honored by being included. That despite her reckless plans and decisions, after her atrocious lack of foresight on the train, Vespa had found _her_ worthy of risking everything for.

Impossible.

That was the only word Buddy really had for her.

She wanted to know more about this impossible woman. She wasn’t allowed to, hadn’t been letting herself, really.

But she did.

And Buddy could risk it.

She could prod further, pull open more doors, look through each. What guarantees did they have of leaving this place other than their trust for each other’s capabilities? This could be the last chance she had at selfishness for Vespa’s sake.

At the precipice of that thought, pain bloomed behind Buddy’s eye and, impossibly, her throat.

She hissed, pulled back.

“ _Thief. What do you think you’re doing?!_ ”

Slowly, the ambience of Vespa’s apartment faded, the sound of the vintage clock _tick_ , _tick_ , _tick_ ing in the background dimming as the sound of alarms pulled in.

There was a sickening _crack_.

Pain intensified.

She sincerely hoped that was not what she thought it was.

“ _Buddy Aurinko, if you break this machine, it’ll be your head_.”

Oh, thank god.

As her consciousness sank slowly, further and further down, she finally found the reason for her throat hurting.

She was screaming.

(In pain, perhaps? She never knew herself to be a shouter before, but there’s a first time for everything, she supposed.)

“ _Wake up, you useless— I’ll kill you!_ ”

If she was screaming, so was Miasma.

Good, she thought. This time, she was sure it was her own as she succumbed to the pain and everything.

Faded…


	2. The Phoenix of Sol

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content warning for interrogations and manipulation

How long had they kept up this ruse with Miasma?

Vespa didn’t really know anymore.

She couldn’t help but think how incredibly short-sighted Miasma was if she thought she could outsmart everyone.

Especially Buddy.

At this point, she was probably the only person Vespa knew who could pull off a long-con while being held hostage and threatened with death on a daily basis.

(Certain exes notwithstanding.)

As if summoned by the thought— and hey, maybe she was— Buddy shot up from where Vespa dragged her into the corner of the room.

Her eye was bleeding when they brought her in.

Vespa knew enough that it wasn’t anything awful, but she did ask (read: shout at one of the assistants) for water, food, and something to clean up with. They usually got what they needed, but only ever enough for one. And despite already dehydrating and starving them, Miasma was courteous enough to not slowly kill them with whatever ancient bacteria they haven’t been vaccinated against down here.

“Keep resting,” Vespa told her, clearing her throat in an attempt to mask its dryness. “You’ll need it.”

Buddy was silent for a moment, then a moment longer than Vespa was used to.

And honestly, the longer it went, the more unnerved it made her because she had a plan. Or, well, the skeleton of one. She didn’t know how much of it she’d be able to tell Buddy yet.

“I think of the two of us, _you_ would require more rest, darling,” Buddy said, pushing herself up to standing. She wobbled a bit before catching herself by the wall. “What with all that torture they put you through.”

Vespa shook her head. “You don’t just walk off getting a hole drilled into your head.”

“Speaking from experience?”

“Yeah, medical,” she said, making her way over to push her back to sitting. “Now, stop messing around and settle down.”

“Then I suppose getting drugged and electrocuted is something one just _walks off_ , hm?”

Vespa snorted.

She sat down next to her, and before Buddy could make a crack at her again— she had that look on her face, that infuriating little smirk that reached her eyes— she said, “We need to be quiet. I don’t know how many of the doc’s assistants are out there, it’s hard to notice them walking around. I need you to tell me what you know right now.”

Buddy blinked. Vespa didn’t know if she was up for this, but the longer they spent in there, the more Vespa felt like they needed to rush. “About what?”

Vespa sighed. “Well, this place, for one.” She waved around at their cell.

She’d poked around in it earlier, with inscriptions and hieroglyphics that didn’t really mean much to her. What she assumed was a coffin was in the middle of the room, but she was too tired to lift the lid and check for bodies herself.

Buddy took in the room as if for the first time.

And hell, it kind of was.

This was the first time they were in here together with Buddy awake and Vespa lucid enough for conversation.

She had to admit, that seemed pretty fucked up.

They really did need to get out of there.

“Unless,” she said, bringing Buddy’s attention back to her. “Is this a good moment? You’ve never been up that fast before.”

“I…”

“It’s okay if you’re not good, you can just go back to sleep. I’ll… I’ll think of something.”

Buddy gave her an imperceptible head shake after a moment. “I’m… quite alright, darling, thank you.” She blinked a couple times. “I was just…”

“What.”

“No.” It didn’t seem like a no, but they were pressed for time. Buddy said, “I do know the schematics of this facility.”

“Good.” Vespa pulled a knife out of her boot as subtly as she could.

“You’re _armed_?”

Vespa blinked. “Yeah?”

“Then why haven’t you escaped yet?”

Vespa sighed, scraping at the loose bits of dust and sand on the bricks beneath them. “They’re smart enough to knock me out between rooms so when I come to, I usually only have either you or that coffin over there to stab. And when they come get me...”

“They have a blaster pointed at me,” Buddy finished. “Yes, I see your point. You have nothing else on you, then?”

“Just the one. You stashed my other one with you on the train.” Buddy had the decency to look sheepish at that.

Vespa shook her head, handing over the knife. “Doesn’t matter. Draw it on the floor and I’ll… keep watch.”

Buddy accepted her knife with a brush of her hand against Vespa’s, a movement so careful and purposeful, Vespa didn’t know whether to pull away because of how inappropriate it felt to have a tender moment in this hell hole or lean into it for warmth.

She settled with ignoring it and standing up to walk around as subtly as she could by the door.

By her estimate, there were only five assistants down here with them, which was unusual but not uncharacteristic, and definitely not bad. That meant there was less collateral.

Vespa may have been able to hold herself in a fight any other day, but she was weak with hunger and dehydration, a bit shaky with however many days she’s had to endure electric shocks to her system.

Plus, between her and Buddy, there was only one knife.

She didn’t think she’d been in worse situations before, at least, not without something to fall back on.

She sighed, shoving her hands down her pockets and fidgeting with the Ruby’s key fob as she continued thinking.

Was Jet looking for her now?

Did he think Buddy had killed her?

Would he be able to track her down here?

Would Dark Matters let him leave to look for them?

“Detective.”

She pushed the thoughts out of her head.

_One step at a time, Vee._

She made her way back to Buddy, sitting so she could block the door and the camera’s view better.

The schematics were odd, a bit like an ant colony’s hill when viewed from the side. Vespa wasn’t sure how accurate it was, but that’s what it seemed to resemble. With only five guards to avoid, it seemed fairly easy to escape, if Miasma didn’t furnish her little ant hill with traps.

“We’re over here.” Buddy pointed the tip of the knife in the middle of the swirling mass and etched a crude little X in the middle of a line. It wasn’t a long way from the entrance, which was good.

“And I’m guessing that’s our way out,” Vespa said, pointing at the line every hall converged to. “So the question right now is really how we’re gonna get out of this room.”

“As well as how to escape the desert when you’re out.”

Vespa nodded at that.

Then shook her head. “What do you mean _me_? We’re _both_ getting out of here, Bud.”

Buddy gave her a wry smile. If Vespa didn’t think it’d be a little too familiar, she might even say it looked a bit resigned. “Darling, there’s no way she’s letting both of us out alive. The only reason I haven’t attempted an escape is because if I move a single square out of line, she has you in check and I’ll have to move back.”

“This isn’t some game anymore, Bud. I told you, I’d get _us_ out of here and I meant it.”

“Well, _can_ you?” Buddy asked in that tone of voice that Vespa knew was going to amp up. “ _Can_ you make a plan that wouldn’t put either of us at considerable risk? With one knife, a couple guards, and, oh, how could I forget, the bomb we still have to get out of Miasma’s clutches?”

And there she went.

Vespa held her hands up, taking a breath. “Look, we have a couple options here. It’s all open-ended because I told you I was going to plan it out with you. If you could just stop whatever this is. Alright?”

“Do not speak to me as I’m some— some injured _animal_ , Detective.”

“You got one out of two, at least,” she grumbled.

She glared up at Buddy. “Look, I don’t know what your deal is right now, but if you’re telling me only _I’m_ getting out of here, it means you already have a plan up your sleeve. So, let’s put everything out on the table. You want me to start or you?”

Buddy squinted at her, then gestured for her to go on.

“Five guards have rotated guarding me here. That I know of, at least, unless a few of them have twins or whatever, I’ve only ever seen five of them.”

“Makes sense,” Buddy said. “Our dear Miasma’s what you would call an oxymoron.”

“Minus the oxy?”

Buddy lightened up at that, smiling just a bit. “A misanthropist studying xenoanthropology, but good guess. She hates working with people. Her assistants signed on to have their voices taken away, so it would be logical to conclude that there’s a very small number of them in here. She curates who she sends after the artifacts as well but luckily, she doesn’t have to silence _us_.”

Vespa winced. “Seriously? I thought they were just… Disabled?”

Buddy shook her head.

“That’s fucked up.”

“My thoughts exactly. Anything else?”

“Well, between the schematics and fighting against maybe five people with blasters with just a single knife, we have a pretty easy way to get out of the facility. Getting out of this room… needs work.”

“So, we need a distraction.”

“As well as a way back to civilization,” she mumbled. “But that’s about it.”

Buddy nodded. “Well, we have some time to think about it. I feel… I think Miasma’s asleep. We might have a few hours.”

Vespa blinked. “You can hear her from all the way over here?”

Buddy inclined her head, then pointed, with her finger, to a line a few halls over from their cell. “She’s right here.” Then, her finger lifted and landed on the back end of the map. “And the Egg is here.”

“And… how do you know all that?”

“I’ve… it’s a long story.”

“Well, if you’re right,“ Vespa bumped her hand away and grabbed her knife. She gently sat around their etched out map. “We got a couple hours, maybe.”

“To escape?”

“To tell me how. And to tell me what your plan is.”

Buddy massaged at her hands, carefully not looking at her.

Vespa didn’t push her, leaning her head back against the stone wall and closing her eyes for a bit.

“It… helps that it’s all a bit related, really. I owe you an apology, Vespa.”

“For what?”

She realized, belatedly, as Buddy began her explanation, that that had been the first time Buddy had used her name since she got up.

“This… growth. It gives me access to people’s minds.”

“Right.”

“It’s a bit like sharing, really,” she said. “Though, I can’t say I have much experience on that front, as you may know. Regardless, it allows me to share access to people’s minds: their thoughts, emotions, memories, all that nonsense.”

“And how is that related—”

“Vespa, can I ask you something?”

She blinked her eyes open. “Uh, about what?”

“Something I want to know about you, perhaps, before I apologize. Call it insurance, whatever makes you feel better. I just want to know something.”

“Oookay? Yeah, shoot.”

“Was there any… reason you didn’t finish schooling?”

Vespa let out a huff, like all the air had just left her lungs. This was honestly the last thing she wanted to talk about.

Least of all with Buddy, who knew next to nothing about her and her fuck-ups.

Deciding to play along, she shook her head and said, “Doesn't matter. I only attended because I got lucky. Scholarship. And it paid off. For a while, at least.”

But Buddy insisted. “Why not?”

“I dunno.” She failed to sound a little less frustrated by that. Trying again, she said, hesitating, “I… just got tired of it. Alright?”

Buddy had nothing to say to that, seemed to be turning things over.

Antsy, Vespa asked, “What about you then? Ever thought of getting a diploma?

“Maybe.”

“What did you want to do?”

Buddy sighed. “Nothing, I suppose. It just seemed to be something to want at the time.”

Vespa considered that with a hum.

She had no real passion _for_ medicine. An interest, sure, but no big platitudes about saving or helping as many people as she can.

Then again, not a lot of her coworkers or colleagues had either. During Olympus U, most of the people who left _were_ the yuks who had passion. It had its ways of beating that out of someone.

It all just...

Seemed like something to want at the time. Like a look that trusted you unconditionally. Like someone’s hand in yours as you got yourself into trouble. Like—

“What?”

Vespa glanced over at her.

She shook her head. “I just never thought of it that way. That may have been me too. Realized it was just something I wanted just to have a thing to want at all.”

Buddy nodded. “The war took its toll.”

“Eh, extenuating circumstances.”

“Big words, Detective.”

“Been spending way too much time around you.”

Buddy sobered at that. Vespa hadn’t even noticed that she began smiling until she stopped.

“Right. Well, now that I’ve gotten my answers out of you. I might have shown my cards too early. I’ve been multitasking per session, trying to get the locations from her memories. And when she realized I’ve been faking, Miasma wanted to test the growth’s abilities on you. And, well...”

And, all at once, Vespa got it.

“Oh.”

“I… wouldn’t have if I could, Vespa. I… I want you to know that, at least.”

Vespa didn’t know what she saw and honestly, she was kind of scared of asking.

What did Buddy think of her now, seeing the mundane mess that was her life for what it was instead of whatever she saw from whatever tabloids got of her?

Compared to whatever Buddy would have gone through to never sticking to one place, having to change names and identities with every job, what did Vespa Ilkay’s life look like?

Vespa Ilkay, Private Eye.

It was just an easy way to get an adrenaline high and she wasn’t even the one who thought of it.

Likely perturbed by her lack of response, Buddy continued. “My plan involves the same course of action.”

“Looking into my head?” Vespa asked, though it sounded taunting— accusatory.

She could see a bit of hurt creep into the way Buddy frowned, but she paid it no mind.

“Quite the opposite, actually. It’s only fair if I let you in this time around.”

She couldn’t help the curious way she said, “You can do that?”

“I can share access, darling. It stands to reason that if I can make you think and feel the same thoughts and emotions I have, memories wouldn’t be too far off.”

“So, you’re saying you don’t know.”

Buddy huffed. “I’m saying we won’t know until we try it. And considering last time I tried to overstep my boundaries with this one,” she gestured to the right side of her face, “led to me being allowed my rest, it’s safe to say that if I do significant damage to myself, Miasma will be more concerned with me than she will be with you.”

“Bud, that’s…”

“Drastic, I know. But it’s a risk I’m willing to take.”

“I was going to say dangerous. You don’t know that that thing won’t kill you if you overexert yourself,” Vespa argued.

She, on the other hand, did. Pain bloomed from a body that wanted to shut itself down so it wouldn’t cause further harm. It was more likely that the growth would make Buddy pass out than kill her.

“I could pretend to take you hostage,” Vespa suggested, maybe a little desperate.

“And if she bargains for your freedom?”

“Then, I’d have gotten what I wanted.”

“And if she lies and kills you when you try to leave?”

Vespa groaned.

“Vespa, darling. It’s our only safe option.”

She looked at Buddy, her resolute eyes and the tired slouch to her shoulders. She remembered that woman in the desert, the fear in her eyes and the way she stuttered out, _I am only human and I’ve just run out of options._

Vespa didn’t know when she began thinking they had any.

She didn’t know if it was just because she was scared of seeing what Buddy would think of as fair trade to show her. She didn’t know if it’ll change her mind about the woman in front of her— the infamous Phoenix of Sol, the one who shook down Solar Correctional Facility’s foundations and let out Outer Rim prisoners and Solar serial criminals, for a steep price.

Honestly, Vespa kind of didn’t want to change her mind about that Buddy.

What did that say about her?

With some reluctance, she said, “Alright.”

Buddy blinked, clearly not expecting cooperation.

Vespa suppressed the urge to scoff because _yeah_.

“Alright, okay, fine,” Vespa rubbed a hand over her face. “What do you want me to do?”

“Well… it would be easier if you… cleared your thoughts, I suppose. I have no other way of phrasing that.”

“Yeah. Yeah, whatever.”

So, she took a deep breath and focused on… nothing. Just the sensation of her clothes, the grit on her skin, and the sound of Buddy’s breathing.

* * *

It was… weird to have someone else control your thoughts. Or mix with them so completely that it felt almost as if she was only one person. Except that she wasn’t.

At least not at the moment.

There was a metallic clatter, loud, almost all around her. Then another, and another.

And when she opened her eyes, she realized it was because she was walking down a hall with metal floors.

It wasn’t Vespa.

This was a memory, she thought. At least, she thought she did. Not her memory though, and definitely not recent.

Doors lined a hall, one on each side, like a dark and gray hotel hallway.

Or a prison.

Actually, prison seemed more apt. She hadn’t been to any since breaking Cass out of Hoosegow, but that was fancier than whatever operations were going down over here.

Before the War ended, this was what her old man told her prison looked like: dark, desolate, monotonous. And where they put naughty little Rangian kids.

She wasn’t very far off. She didn’t know if that was Buddy’s thought or not, but it felt right.

Buddy— because who else would it have been if not Buddy— turned the corner into a hall _with_ light, and Vespa could see enough from her peripheral vision to see the orange sleeves on her arms.

Buddy was a criminal, she knew, but an ex-con?

No.

That wasn’t what was happening here.

Where were the guards?

Why was she just walking around?

Suddenly, Buddy lowered her head as she made her way down the hall. A quick flutter of activity in her head told her it was to avoid the camera they just passed in that narrow hall.

She entered the control room, with its monitors of security footage and tables of buttons, and carefully stepped over the body of the guard on the floor.

He didn’t seem dead. Vespa couldn’t really see, and Buddy didn’t seem keen to check if he were.

A bit uncharacteristic of her.

Studying the entire table of miniscule buttons and options, Buddy pressed a few in quick succession, almost practiced in its smoothness, as if she always walked into rooms full of guards passed out.

The lights in the halls she’d passed earlier turned on in one of the screens. And, simultaneously, all the doors opened.

Buddy stepped back to look at every monitor in the room as the doors in every hall opened and people started leaving their cells.

“That’s… step four done,” she muttered.

She turned to leave, then paused before backtracking to grab the guard’s blaster and cap and point what seemed to be a chip at one of the reading panels on the table. “Almost forgot insurance. Better erase your steps, Aurinko, lest someone follow you.”

With that, she started unbuttoning her jumper… to reveal a guard’s uniform underneath.

Well.

The heels definitely made more sense now.

Buddy held her stolen blaster in both hands and started down the hall back to the prison cells.

And when she reached the chaos of the open cells, she took advantage of the rabble, lack of guards, and lack of audio in the cameras by shouting, “Take the hall down to the end and turn left! The fire exits are open! Whatever you do, do _not_ use the front entrance.”

And suddenly the chaotic crowd became orderly, as if controlled merely by the sound of Buddy’s command.

It took a while for the halls to clear. Buddy didn’t check who stayed behind, seeing as she’d orchestrated the damn thing, she figured she shouldn’t have to worry about the people who refused to participate.

But she did take extra care leaving a couple gifts behind the cell blocks she was certain were empty. Vespa hadn’t been a frontliner in the War— she was a couple batches behind— but she knew what a homemade bomb looked like, and Buddy left a _lot_ of them.

Freeing inmates, detonating a prison…

So, this was it.

The night Buddy Aurinko murdered her father.

And, when Buddy turned that final corner, a shock ran up her body from her chest.

A stun blast.

Her consciousness slipped…

Before being abruptly pulled back.

She stumbled back, trying not to crumple in the face of vertigo. There was something holding her up— a hand.

Buddy’s, once she found it and traced it back to its owner. Wearing the same guard uniform, looking younger than Vespa’s ever seen her on the outside.

“Stay with me,” she pleaded. “The scene’s not over yet.”

Vespa stared down at the hand, seeing with no eyes, only feeling. “Bud… You’re… How—?”

Buddy let go. Vespa tried not to think about why the feeling of being grasped stayed despite it. “I’m not quite sure how you’re seeing any of this, but if you’re responding, then I suppose I’ve just gotten the hang of it.”

“You look a lot younger.”

“Oh, don’t flatter me, darling.”

“No, I’m serious. You’re like. I dunno, a kid.”

“I was seventeen.”

“What?”

“Don’t bother, it doesn’t matter.” Buddy turned to look behind them. “Like I said. The scene isn't over yet.”

There was a tone to her voice that argued otherwise. That this _was_ a big deal, actually, and that she didn’t want to show this part of it, but she was already turning away.

“Bud?”

Buddy glanced back at her, and for a split second, there was that doubt again, that twinge of permanent fear. Insecurity, maybe, or some other emotion making her hesitate. On a younger face, it only made her look even younger, more vulnerable.

“I do suppose it’s only fair,” was her sardonic response before Vespa _had_ to turn around to see where the light was in the room.

Buddy made her way to the middle of it and took a seat.

A holding cell. Table, chairs, magnets that keep a prisoner’s bindings stuck to the center of the table and their feet clamped down to the floor. Vespa was familiar with holding cells— she’d peeked into her fair share at Precinct 151, and was held for a few hours once before.

Right then, Buddy was clamped down, head lowered to the table as if passed out, but if the memory already playing out was any indication, it meant that she was pretending. And that was smart, because right then, someone entered the cell.

Well, two someone’s, and by the familiar cuts of their suits and glasses—

Two agents from Dark Matters.

Wait.

What?

One of them, Vespa didn’t pay much attention to. Couldn’t, really. They didn’t seem as important as the one who took a seat in front of Buddy.

Though a bit unkempt, her hair was tied back in a bun, face impassive and severe as she settled in.

It was a striking sight, her and Buddy sitting across each other in this drabby cell, dressed in blacks and whites.

Because both women had the same exact shade of blood red hair.

“Sit up straight, this is unbecoming of you,” said the agent, poking idly at her comms.

Rolling her shoulders, Buddy sat up with a sigh and tried to rearrange her limbs as best as she could. Vespa could feel the ghost twinge of having kept them like that for too long.

“Mother.”

“Daughter.”

“I have to say, I like what you’ve done with the place,” Buddy’s mother said casually. “Prison riots look good on the old girl.”

“I’m sure Father agrees,” Buddy quipped, shaking her leg under the table. It was a restless action that didn’t fit her and Vespa was right to notice it.

Buddy was always armed.

“Oh, I wouldn’t know.” Buddy’s mother took her glasses off and Vespa could see the resemblance between them, the same set to their brows, the bridges of their noses, even the places Buddy’s eyes would crinkle with age. The only difference was that her mother, for all the traits she shared with Buddy, wouldn’t have been mistaken for a mother if she tried.

There was no warm regard or recognition in her eyes when she looked at her daughter.

“No?”

Her mother untied her bun and shook her hair out, moving to retie it. “No. You see, your father’s dead.”

Buddy scoffed but there was a brief pause before she said, “You have better material to joke with, Mother.”

“Director,” the agent in the corner said. “They’ve finished with the warden’s office.”

Buddy’s leg stopped shaking.

She hadn’t known, Vespa realized, but he couldn’t get another thought in edgewise because the scene played on without her.

“Thank you, Agent M. You may leave now. Ping me, if anything comes up.”

“Yes, director.”

Buddy didn’t wait for Agent M to leave the room. “What have you done.”

“Quite the change in tone, Daughter. What happened to having better material?”

“I did as you asked,” she gritted out. Her leg, however subtle, shook and shifted. Vespa wasn’t sure if she was being paranoid or if Buddy’s mother noticed the movement as Buddy leaned forward in her anger.

Her mother didn’t react, only met dead eyes with fuming ones. The sight of them filled Vespa with dread and this time she knew it was hers because all she could feel from Buddy was disappointment— aimed mostly at herself.

Buddy scoffed bitterly. “I can’t believe I fell for this.”

“I can,” her mother finally said, and the disappointment curdled into hatred. “I know you—”

“So, what wrong have I done now?” The jammer, because that’s what Buddy knew it as, had finally reached her ankle. She spoke over the hiss of her shackles unlocking. “You’ve gone all this way to… oh, let’s see, make me incapacitate the prison security system, disable the security protocols, _indiscriminately_ free all the prisoners—”

“Those were all _your_ decisions.”

“Oh, why of course! Because Mother dearest would _never_ do anything wrong in her life, would she!” Buddy let out a severe laugh, slamming her elbows down on the table and leaning forward.

Her mother grabbed her comms before it clattered to the floor.

More than any of her mother’s statements and non-answers, the calmness in her expression infuriated Buddy the most, really.

“Officially, Pallas Aurinko died in a prison riot gone awry,” she said idly, making Vespa just as if not _more_ infuriated than Buddy was. “He was stabbed with a sharpened piece of plastic made by one of the inmates and left to bleed over his mother’s favorite carpet. An heirloom, he used to say. Cost him twice the price of the mangy thing to get it moved into his office.”

“Officially,” Buddy noted with a measure of calm that Vespa didn’t have. “I told the inmates not to take the front entrance, Mother. You can’t expect me to believe whatever red tape you’re putting on top of this no matter how many times you paint it that way.”

“Well, that _is_ what happened. The rest is—”

“Classified.” Buddy gritted out. “Right.”

They looked at each other for a moment, then, and it was all Vespa could wonder if Buddy was actually going to get out of this.

Which was a dumb thing to consider since she’d _met_ Buddy.

Her mother sighed. “Buddy—”

“ _You_ don’t get to call me that, not after what you’ve done to him, you monster,” Buddy snapped, the first visible sign of grief she’d shown since her mother dropped the news.

“I am doing this for you.”

“ _For me!_ ” She laughed, and it was a wretched sound coming from her dry throat. “I’m afraid you’re becoming frail in your old age and frankly, incredibly senile. I just _told_ you what you’ve made me do. For all intents and purposes, despite not knowing what you’re planning, your next logical step would be to frame me for this.”

“And I am.”

Buddy let out a loud laugh in one breath.

“But this is _for you_. You may not see it my way, but this is the only way I can keep you out of this.”

“By pinning the blame on me.”

“Do you plan on coming with my agents without a fight?”

“You know the answer to that.”

“Then I have no other choice but to choose this.” Her mother was raising her voice. “Why did you think I let you choose to do this in the first place?”

“To manipulate me into doing your bidding, Mother,” Buddy shouted back. “And at the moment, your precious Dark Matters isn’t doing anything to back me up for something it assisted me in doing.”

“Your father was housing some of the most deplorable Solar generals in this prison and put them under considerable protection.”

“So you solve that by letting me free them with the rest and assassinating him instead?”

“So that we may get rid of them as soon as they left as well, yes. You are as complicit to this crime as my organization is.”

“I haven’t killed anyone!”

“By setting some of these people free, you have killed _hundreds_ already.”

“And what about me, Mother?”

That made them pause, made them both realize they’d been shouting at each other for the past minute.

Softer, Buddy repeated, “What about me, then? I’m not a shadow organization with disposable agents. I’m just me. Murder Pal, pin the blame on me: you can hide behind your agents but I’m just… me.”

“You freed them. You have to take responsibility for your actions.”

“I was freeing the innocent ones. The ones who have homes and loved ones we were barring them from, and they’ve been held here for _years_. Did you know that none of them are combatants?”

“More than half of the current prison population are non-combatant prisoners of war, yes, I knew that. But that does not mean the rest of them are as well.”

Always had an answer, always a thorn on her side, was Buddy’s frustrated thought.

All Vespa could think, sourly, was how correctly Buddy’s mother had put it.

In one fell swoop, guided by the hand of Dark Matters and by the sheer force of her righteous anger, Buddy had just freed a lot of innocent Outer Rim people alongside genuinely awful Solar ones.

It _would_ cost lives. Vespa didn’t follow along enough to know specific numbers, but…

For Dark Matters— hell, the _director_ of Dark Matters to use her own child as a scapegoat?

Something didn’t add up.

Dark Matters was all about quiet and covert, so why hide behind Buddy’s explosives?

Buddy nearly snarled, “I try to do one good thing for these people, and you—”

“You never will be.”

That hurt Buddy, Vespa noted.

She knew what that tinge of pain between the ribs was, felt it often enough just speaking to her old man, some days. But the sheer intensity of it made it undeniably Buddy’s, because Vespa’s had long since dulled to a bare ache.

“Big words, coming from the director of an organization for the greater good,” Buddy hissed, vitriolic, but her eyes were as clear as daylight— brimming with hurt. “Framing her own _child_.”

“And that’s precisely why you never will be either, _Buddy_ ,” her mother said gravely. As she stood from her seat.

Buddy leaned away from her.

“You can try, you can claw your way up whatever imaginary ladder out of hell you see fit.” Her mother grabbed something from her pocket and slipped it on top of Buddy’s cuffs.

It hissed as it unlocked but Buddy didn’t move, paralyzed as she stared up at her mother’s eyes.

“You can be the name on everyone’s lips, the star of every play, the _hero_ on every stream, but you will never be good, Buddy Aurinko. Because I know you, my daughter. I was you— _am_ you. And we Aurinkos are never going to be _anything_ but ourselves.”

Buddy didn’t say anything to that, couldn’t really.

She grabbed her comms and said, “Agent M, have the rest been—”

The floor rumbled beneath them. Once, softly, then a second time strong enough to make her mother stumble.

The chair clattered to the floor as Buddy broke out into a sprint for the door.

Vespa turned to follow, but her ears popped painfully before she could.

It rendered her deaf for a few moments, blind as well as she closed her eyes against the ringing that followed.

She groaned and hissed, the ground beneath her rough as she crumpled in on herself.

It took her a while to realize that the ringing in her ears had turned hoarse and deep, and merely a moment to realize that it was not ringing anymore but Buddy’s screaming.

She shot up, ignoring the vertigo as she grabbed ahold of the coffin to pull herself to standing.

She was seeing doubles, triples— the ghostly image of a holding cell transposed over their Martian burial chamber.

Buddy Aurinko’s mother looming over her, Buddy crumpled on the sandy red floor clutching her head with a pool of blood beneath her.

“Help!” She shouted, glaring down at the anthill map Buddy had made for her as she knelt down beside Buddy and made sure she didn’t hurt herself as she writhed in pain.

Vespa willed herself to remember the plans, willed herself to not feel awful for having to leave her here.

This was part of the plan.

This was part of the plan.

This was part of the plan.

She was confident enough with her route that it frustrated her that none of the assistants have come to their aid yet.

Vespa pulled her knife out of her boot and slipped it, subtly, under her palm. Over Buddy’s screams of agony— a sound she will most likely dream about nights and nights after this— she shouted, “Damn it, can one of you idiots get over here and help! I think there’s something wrong with her!”

Buddy paused for breath, eyes open, still in a trance as she stared after memories and explosions. Vespa kept her breathing steady. “I’ll be back for you, Bud, I swear. Just hang in there.”

The door slid open.

Vespa waited for one of the assistants— unarmed, must be the medic— to get close enough before backing away.

Another assistant by the door stood idly by with a blaster.

Without aiming, Vespa threw her arm out at them and sprinted— like Buddy had in her memory— for the door.

She kicked up dust as she ran, grabbing the blaster and her knife as she started her sprint for home.

**Author's Note:**

> if this interested you, go read/listen to the rest of the series and tell us what you think in the comments! i worked really hard on this so i would really REALLY appreciate feedback _please_.
> 
> and thank you so much for reading! it means a lot to me.
> 
> you can find me on any social media [here](https://stubbornjerk.carrd.co/#contact).
> 
> EDIT (16 Mar 2021): FUCK I KNEW I FORGOT SOMETHING. Full credits to [Captain_Aurinko](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Captain_Aurinko) for the name used for Buddy's dad, from the fic [READ MORE WLW FICS YOU COWARDS](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24355276), an incredible fic that inspired some of the basics of this AU's backstory for Buddy.


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